Published: July 17, 2008 12:01 pm            

Lee Ward — 07/20/08

On my last plane trip, I learned the true meaning of meeting yourself coming and going.

After boarding, I found a woman in my seat. I asked her to check her seating assignment to make sure she was in the right one and she was. The airline had given us the same seat. It wasn’t a crowded flight, so I just took the seat beside her.

In a few minutes, the flight attendant asked if there was a “Leah Ann Smithward” on board. We both raised our hands.

The flight attendant had a boarding pass for the connecting flight with that name on it. The other woman already had her boarding pass, so I took it.

She said, “I thought she was talking to me because they’re always getting my name wrong. It’s Lee Smith.”

“Yeah? Mine was Lee Smith before I got married,” I told her. “That’s wild.”

“My name is really Leigh Ann, but I shortened it to Leigh,” she said.

“Same here.”

We didn’t spell our names the same way, but we both had our names misspelled frequently.

On the next leg of the flight, I sat in the front of the plane and didn’t see Leigh on board so I figured she was a different connection. On the flight back, there she was in the airport, boarding the same return flight I was on.

Of course, when I went to get my boarding pass, the agent told me there was a problem. I explained the name situation and she gave me a boarding pass. When it was time to board, I was told I had already boarded. Again, I explained the situation and was allowed to board.

Again, Leigh already had my seat, so I sat beside her and we laughed about the confusion.

I asked her if she lived in Charleston, which is where the flight would eventually terminate.

“No, actually I live in Williamson,” she said.

“I don’t believe it,” I said. “I grew up in Williamson.”

The more we talked the weirder it got

She and her husband live in the same neighborhood as my parents, in the neighborhood where I grew up. I drive past her house every time I visit them.

Before she was married, she said, she was a Barker. “A Chattaroy Barker?” I asked.

Everyone around me surely thought it was a hillbilly reunion at 30,000 feet and would have paid big money for a parachute.

“No,” she said. “I grew up across the river in Pike County, but my brother lives in Chattaroy now.”

Of course, I went to high school with her nephews.

By the time I found out what the boys were doing and how their children were, we were touching down.

But in classic hillbilly fashion, Leigh gave me her four-digit phone number; everybody knows the exchange, and said, “If you ever need me to check on your parents, give me a call. I mean that.”

And I believe she would.

LEE WARD can be reached at lward@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2661.

        

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